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Throughout medieval times, a major current of thought distinct from official religion existed, culminating in the works of the alchemists and hermetists. Among such groups were some of the early scientists and men remarkable for the strength of their independent thinking and for their adventurous lives, such as Paracelsus. The nature of the mysterious beings dressed in shiny garments or covered with dark hair intrigued these men intensely. They were the first to relate these strange beings to the creatures described in the Bible and in the writings of the early cabalists. According to biblical writers, the heavenly hierarchy includes beings of human form called cherubim, a name that in Hebrew means "full of knowledge." Ezekiel describes them in the following terms: Their appearance was like burning coals of fire, and like the appearance of lamps: it went up and down among the living creatures; and the fire was bright, and out of the fire went forth wd lightning. Are the mysterious creatures who fly through the sky and land in their "cloudships" — Agobard's authority notwithstanding — of the same race as the angels? asked the old philosophers. No, because they are mortal. A book entitled Entretiens sur les sciences secrétes notes: The Hebrews used to call these beings who are between the Angels and Man Sadaim, and the Greeks, transposing the letters and adding but one syllable, called them Daimonas. Among the ancient Philosophers these demons were held to be an Aerial Race, ruling over the Elements, mortal, engendering, and unknown in this century to those who rarely seek Truth in her ancient dwelling place, which is to say, in the Cabala and in the theology of the Hebrews, who possessed the special art of holding communion with that Aerial People and of conversing with all these Inhabitants of the Air. and a mortal being; that there cannot be in nature so vast a flaw, without some intermedial kind of life, partaking of them both. As, therefore, we find the intercourse between the soul and the body to be made by the animal spirits, so between divinity and humanity there is this species of demons. It is not surprising, then, to find that the "philosophers" disagreed with Agobard on the nature of the three men and the woman who were captured by the mob in Lyons: The famous Cabalist Zedechias, in the reign of your Pepin, took it into his head to convince the world that the Elements are inhabited by those peoples whose nature I have just described to you. The expedient of which he bethought himself was to advise the Sylphs to show themselves in the Air to everybody: They did so sumptuosly. These beings were seen in the Air in human form, sometimes in battle array marching in good order, halting under arms, or encamped beneath magnificent tents; sometimes on wonderfully constructed aerial ships, whose flying squadrons roved at the will of the Zephyrs. What happened? Do you suppose that ignorant age would so much as reason as to the nature of these marvellous spectacles? The people straightaway believed that sorcerers had taken possession of the Air for the purpose of raising tempest and bringing hail upon their crops. The learned theologians and jurists were soon of the same opinion as the masses. The Emperor believed it as well; and this ridiculous chimera went so far that the wise Charlemagne, and after him Louis the Debonair, imposed grievous penalties upon all these The Seven Visitors of Facius Cardan Plutarch even had a complete theory on the nature of these beings. According to A. H. Clough: He thinks it absurd that there should be no mean between the two extremes of an immortal